The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy (26 page)

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Authors: Erick Stakelbeck

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BOOK: The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy
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To the average, inside-the-Beltway talking head or Foggy Bottom careerist, this all sounds absolutely nuts—and indeed, it is. What the chattering classes can’t grasp, however—much to the detriment of America’s national security—is that it doesn’t matter what they think about it. The only thing that matters here is that the Iranian regime is dominated by die-hard “Twelvers” who truly believe the Mahdi is at the doorstep and are shaping policy around his imminent reemergence. If U.S. officials refuse to even consider the fact that the Iranian regime (and its nascent nuclear weapons program) is ultimately driven not by geo-political considerations but by an apocalyptic, end-times ideology, then they have no one but themselves to blame when the other shoe drops.
If Iran’s mullahs have their way, that “shoe” will come in the form of a renewed caliphate poised to stomp on the throats of Israel and the West. They made that point abundantly clear in a propaganda video produced shortly after the outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring. In March 2011, Reza Kahlili—a former CIA double agent who for years worked undercover inside Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards—provided me with an exclusive copy of the film, which he had obtained from his sources within the regime. Called
The Coming Is Upon Us: Israel Shall Be Destroyed
, it was approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government and produced in collaboration with the office of then-Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The documentary described ongoing upheavals in the Middle East as a prelude to the impending arrival of the Mahdi, who will unite the Muslim world—with Iran at the head of the pack—for a decisive showdown with Israel and America. According to Kahlili, “the purpose of the project was to inform Muslims across the globe of the immediate coming of the last Islamic messiah. The Iranian leaders, now more than ever, feel that all the stars are aligned for such an event” thanks to the ascension of Islamist governments brought on by the so-called Arab Spring. Kahlili told me that the Iranians planned to distribute the video throughout the Arab world in order to spark further uprisings and help pave the way for a new caliphate.
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Only in the Iranian version, it would actually be more of an “Imamate,” with an Iranian Ayatollah—and eventually, the Mahdi—at the helm of the Islamic coalition.
My report on
The Coming Is Upon Us
received heavy coverage from Fox News, talk radio, and the Drudge Report, and reportedly caused some rancor inside the Iranian regime, which had never intended for the film to leak out to Western media.
61
And yet the regime has not been shy in recent years about its devotion to the Mahdi or its desire to unite the Muslim world. Each September, as he stepped to the podium before the UN General Assembly and scores of world leaders, former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened his addresses with a public prayer to the Mahdi. Likewise, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei frequently encourages the Iranian public to prepare for the Mahdi’s arrival. He used a July 2012 speech, for instance, to exhort Iranians to, “prepare for the coming . . . of the 12th Imam” and “be ready to fight.” He added, “There will come a time when all the oppressive powers of the world will be destroyed and humanity will be enlightened in the era of Imam Mahdi.”
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Under the stewardship of the Mahdi, Iran’s leaders believe, the revived caliphate will rule the world and obliterate those “oppressive powers”—namely, the United States and Israel. That’s why the current unrest across the region has them so galvanized. In September 2011, Khamenei hosted a two-day conference in Tehran on “Islamic Awakening” that was attended by several hundred guests from Arab countries. Attendees—Sunni and Shia alike—discussed ways that Islamists can utilize the so-called Arab Spring to gain power and work together toward common goals.
63
Khamenei drove this point home further in a later speech, imploring the Muslim world to, “make the most of this opportunity for the formation of an international Islamic power-bloc.”
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In other words, a twenty-first-century caliphate.
The nations that would belong to this renewed caliphate are practically all majority Sunni. Yet Iran is overwhelmingly Shia. Judging by its repeated calls for Islamic unity across sectarian lines, and its continued support for Sunni terror groups, the Iranian regime is not bothered by this fact. But how would Sunnis—who comprise 85 to 90 percent of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims—feel about being led by a nation from the minority Shiite sect, to which only some 10 to 13 percent of all Muslims adhere? On top of that fact, the majority of Iranians are ethnic Persians who share a long history of animosity and distrust with their Arab neighbors.
The trump card here is an Iranian bomb—provided Israel allows Iran to acquire one. That is a highly unlikely proposition in my view, but not impossible, given the Obama administration’s relentless pressure on Israel to refrain from a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The acquisition of nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles capable of delivering them to the shores of the United States—two milestones Iran is working feverishly toward as of this writing—would make Iran the undisputed strong horse in the Middle East. All of a sudden, Iran would be able to flex its muscles and influence like never before and legitimately claim the mantle of leader of the Muslim World.
Yes, Sunni Pakistan already has some hundred-plus nuclear warheads in its arsenal. But the current Pakistani regime has not yet shown any aspirations to either lead or join a reformed caliphate. Of course, if hardcore jihadists were to seize power in Pakistan—a nightmare scenario not outside the realm of possibility—that could change in a hurry. Or perhaps Pakistan and Iran would simply combine their resources, form a united nuclear Islamic front, and dominate the world. The two nations have had generally frosty relations since the 1979 Iranian revolution, but, again, with things moving so rapidly in the wrong direction throughout the region, no scenario can be deemed impossible.
Many, if not most, Sunnis would violently resist the idea of an Iranian-led caliphate. In the case of Turkey and Egypt, each has its own designs on global Islamic supremacy and would seek equal footing with the Iranians in any strategic partnership. The Saudi Royals—Iran’s hated enemy—would seemingly never accept an Iranian-led caliphate, although the looming possibility of a nuclear Iran marching into Shia-dominated eastern Saudi Arabia and claiming its oil fields could be more than enough to make the House of Saud reconsider.
The harsh reality, for Sunnis, is that a nuclear-armed, jihadist Iran would provide the best chance to crush Israel and the West and unify the Islamic world. That’s why I believe Sunni Islamists would reluctantly fall in line—at least for a short time—behind the hated Persian Shia for the greater good, in their view, of destroying America and Israel. In the meantime, of course, those same Sunni nations would work post haste to acquire their own nuclear weapons in order to supplant Iran. For Iran, everything is contingent on obtaining the bomb. Without it, Iran at the head of a revived caliphate is simply not happening.
Shia and Sunni animosity does guarantee one thing. Once the envisioned caliphate wipes out all the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and other worthless kuffar, Sunni and Shia will resume their endless war against each other.
“Over 100 years’ time we are closing a number of parentheses; the 1911 Tripoli war in 2011, the 1912 Bulgarian-Balkan migration in 2012, in 2017 it will be 100 years since Jerusalem’s division from the Ottoman Empire in 1917, and in 2018 it will be a century since our separation from the Middle East.”
It was March 2013 and Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking before an audience of fellow AKP members, was seemingly mourning the fall of the Turkish-led Ottoman Caliphate while, at the same time, promising to resurrect it:
Without going to war with anyone, without declaring enemies and without disrespecting anyone’s borders, we will be connecting Sarajevo to Damascus and Erzurum to Batum once again. This is the source of our strength. They may now appear to be separate countries; however, 110 years ago Yemen and Skopje were both part of the same country. The same can be said for Erzurum and Benghazi. However, when we make references to this, we are labeled as “neo-Ottomans.” Those who have united Europe are not referred to as neo-Romans, yet those who unify the Middle Eastern geography become neo-Ottomans. It is an honor to be tied to the history of the Ottomans, the Seljuks, the Artuqids, and the Ayyubids. However, we have never set our sights on another nation’s land.
65
 
The nations vanquished in bloody campaigns by Ottoman Turks in centuries past would likely have a far different recollection of the old empire than Davutoglu. While he can deride the “neo-Ottoman” label all he wants, his remarks were nothing less than an open call for the reestablishment of the Ottoman Caliphate. His assertion that this can be accomplished bloodlessly is likely a nod to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), where fifty-seven Muslim nations and the Palestinians already work together in unison—and where Turkey has taken a leading role.
“It is our obligation to reestablish regional order in this geography and we will be embarking on achieving this day and night,” Davutoglu continued. “We have to give our history its justice.”
Davutoglu, in a symbolic act, later met with the living descendants of the last Ottoman Sultans at a reception in London.
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The AKP’s intentions should be clear and unambiguous to anyone who is paying attention, including even the Obama administration.
The caliphate is coming: an Islamic super-state united economically, politically, and militarily, speaking with one, powerful voice at the UN and controlling a sizable chunk of the world’s oil wealth. Its sights will be set squarely upon first, Israel, then, the West. The only questions left to answer are, in what form will it come, which nations will be included, and who will be at the helm?
CHAPTER SEVEN
 
AMERIKHWAN: TERRORISTS IN SUITS
 
A
l-Quds Market was the type of traditional Middle Eastern grocery found throughout the West Bank and Gaza, but with an added touch: the store’s entire exterior was painted in the red, black, green, and white colors of the Palestinian flag. From the outside, needless to say, it looked like a no-go zone for a non-Muslim supporter of Israel.
That instinct was confirmed once I walked through the front door and glanced above the meat counter, where a large Palestinian flag featuring the Dome of the Rock—one similar to those flown at rallies for Hamas—greeted me.
Such a brazen display was to be expected in the terror hotbeds of Jenin or Gaza City. But I was in Hilliard, Ohio, thousands of miles from the seething cauldron of the Palestinian territories and a world away from the unbridled radicalism of the Muslim Middle East. Or so I thought.
I had come to Hilliard, a sleepy suburb of Columbus nestled in the American heartland, at the invitation of my friend, counterterrorism consultant and Hilliard native Patrick Poole. He had recently returned to his hometown after ten years away and was shocked by what he found.
“After a decade away, to come back and see all the changes Hilliard had gone through and then to find out that we had essentially become a center of jihad, one of the hottest centers of jihad in the country, was just mind blowing,” he told me as I interviewed him at the local VFW Post.
At the center of this budding network, Poole explained, was an Egyptian native and leading global Muslim Brotherhood operative named Salah Sultan. When I arrived in October 2007, Sultan—hailed by local media and Islamic organizations as a pillar of the Columbus-area Muslim community—had already left his upscale single home in Hilliard behind and returned to the Middle East. His request for U.S. citizenship was soon rejected and he was denied reentry into the country, thanks, in part, to his undisguised support of Hamas during various trips abroad.
In 2006, for instance, Sultan appeared at a rally for the terror group in Turkey. One year later, he participated alongside top Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in an event in Qatar honoring Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Sultan is a longtime protégé and confidante of al-Qaradawi and has appeared with him at numerous events over the past several years.
1
This is the same Yusuf al-Qaradawi, of course, who has advocated for suicide bombings against Israeli women and children and U.S. troops alike.

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